The present invention relates to disposable undergarments and, more specifically, to methods and apparatuses for forming disposable undergarments.
Generally, disposable undergarments such as pants-type diapers are made up of two nonwoven layers of material with elastic strands of material placed between the two nonwoven layers of material thus creating an elastic web laminate. The layers of material are continuous sheets of material that are eventually cut into individual undergarment lengths. The elastic strands may be arranged and cut so that specific areas of the undergarment are free of elastic tension or forces. An absorbent pad, often contained within an insert or core is then also placed into the pants-type diaper product.
To insure the pants-type diaper retains a proper shape and to hold all of the added layers of the diaper, reinforcing layers and backing materials are normally added to the continuous sheets of material, with the reinforcing layers corresponding to the cut elastic strands of each individual blank. Each of these layers needs to be adhesively joined at some point in the manufacturing process to the elastic web laminate to form the completed undergarment.
One such method to produce a disposable undergarment is shown in Umebayashi, U.S. Appl. No. 2003/013518. The application discloses a process of producing a disposable undergarment wherein a layer of elastic material is adhered between two nonwoven layers. Further along the assembly process, a reinforcing material is added to the layers, followed by an absorbent pad, and then a backing layer is added to the above combined layers. While this process will produce a disposable undergarment, it has been observed that there may potentially be more efficient ways of producing the disposable undergarments.